What defined failure for these men and women? They thought they were doing their duty and got nothing except embarrassment and a generous monthly stipend suggesting a nice place in the country, far away, would work for everyone. We don’t have to see you and be reminded of the victory you didn’t win and you don’t have to see us and be reminded of what ungrateful shits your fellow countrymen are.
So they all came, guilty, awkward, curious to see what the animals did when they were let out of their cages, learning they were just like everyone else, except a little more so. Because they had nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing at all.
Puppy’s apartment had been turned into a Story Center/Hotel since there weren’t enough rooms for all the GIs. Kenuda had found some obscure statute from the war allowing a Cousin to declare any part of the country as a refugee center, last used for Americans fleeing Los Angeles and Washington.
Now throughout the Bronx, subway stations turned into shelters. Apartment building lobbies, schools, office buildings, idle buses, anywhere that had a floor and a roof were Veterans Homes. Mopping brigades formed to sterilize floors. Groceries and liquor stores ran out.
People overran the Clerk’s Office on Burnside Avenue, offering their homes. Soldiers were grabbed on the street, sometimes leading to a brief fistfight, until the vet realized he wasn’t being sent away again, but honored.
Nostalgic food appeared, cheeseburgers and tacos and franks on long festive tables set up just about anywhere, in the middle of a street, at a bus stop; Mooshie’s old music piped out of makeshift speakers. Siblings danced with soldiers. Soldiers kissed siblings.
It was like they’d won the war. Except for the medals. There were none. Dress uniforms, sure, but not a glitter of gold or silver, a thread of a ribbon. Save your tin, the soldiers had said. Show us something that matters. America finally had.
Unlike most of the Bronx, Puppy had somewhere to go. He and Mooshie left Ty and Mick, hobbling on a bad toe, to serve as hosts for about twenty soldiers. Puppy didn’t want to think what the place would look like. For all the anti-privilege sentiment, he was the star player and he was pitching tomorrow night and he needed sleep. It was nearly midnight and he wasn’t even close to tired.
“How long did you live here?” Mooshie gave herself a tour of Annette’s apartment.
“Thirteen years.”
Mooshie admired a painting of ducks attacking a child. “That a LeBeau?”
“Look who you’re asking.” Puppy searched the liquor cabinet, finding an unopen bottle of Boulder Brandy. He poured them shots.
“Is it hard to be here?”
He shrugged. Over there by the bookcase, Annette had smashed his baseball bat. They’d screwed in that corner where there used to be a divan. She’d thrown many glasses of wine at the dining room table, along with telling him she was pregnant, until the miscarriage decided otherwise. Like any relationship, memories to pick and choose, allowing you to fool yourself into thinking you were always happy or always miserable; gray was not a good color for love.
Mooshie sat cross-legged on the couch, the brandy between her thighs.
“How’s the arm?”
“Good enough.” He could barely brush his hair anymore.
They listened to the discordant songs rising up from the street. “I should sing for them.”
“You’ll sing enough tomorrow. What’s the play list?”
“Typical Mooshie brilliance.”
“Meaning I should mind my own business.”
“You’re so insightful, my fiancé.”
Puppy laid his weary head against the chair, tapping his feet. “Why do you think she’s really doing it?”
“Who?”
“What other she or her do we have?”
Mooshie sipped from the bottle. “It’s not for us.”
“C’mon, Moosh. Where would we be without Grandma?” He waited for Mooshie to answer. “She kept us alive.”
“For what?”
“To survive. Twenty-five years. Look how we’ve rebuilt.”
“Again, for what? A society so scared they hide behind false love?”
Someone set up a really noisy sound system right below the window, blasting Griebel’s Spirit Wind.
“Better than the hate, Moosh. Grandma at least makes us think in the right direction. Hate does nothing.”
“Hate settles scores.”
“No. Hate’s contagious.” Puppy took the bottle away and sipped. “Look how the Allahs hate us. What’s it got them?”
Mooshie stared hard. “The fucking world.”
“For how long? All the great empires collapse.”
“Like America’s?”
“We were never an empire, Moosh. That was probably our downfall. We acted like we ruled the place, but we were never willing to punish people. To be real assholes. We’re too nice to be tyrants. The mirrors of democracy got in the way.”
“We got soft, Pup. Bad guys don’t respect soft.”
“Maybe they respect love.” Mooshie snorted derisively. “I’m serious. Maybe once baseball’s really back, we can offer to play the Allahs. How’s about that for a real World Series.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Remember the great Allah players Edi Badr, Ali Sadat.”
She sneered. “Mediocre.”
“Bullshit. Badr hit .400 three straight years. Sadat had a career 1.87 ERA. You never did that.”
Her glass shattered against the wall. “I wasn’t a traitor.”
“People thought you were.”
“For speaking up.”
“Yeah. For what you believed in. So did they. There were innocent people deported, Moosh. Not everyone was a terrorist.”
“If they prayed to Mecca, they believed in sharia, which means world conquest. I was there. None of them fought for America.”
“Not true,” he said softly. “There was the Prayer Brigade.”
“Which turned on us.”
“Because the Marines Second Company attacked them at Fort Bragg.”
“After their friends took out Washington. They found traitors in the brigade.”
“Some. A few. Not all.”
Mooshie shook her head pityingly. “We could do this all night.”
He conceded with a nod, crawling onto her lap. Mooshie took the bottle over his mild protest.
“You’re pitching tomorrow.”
She switched off the lights and they listened to the singing on the street. It lasted all night.
• • • •
TOMAS STRETCHED OUT his aching good leg in the back
